0 Another busy month

It has been another busy month at Keeping Stock HQ. Numbers-wise, it wasn't quite an outright record month, but we had the most traffic we've ever had in a 30-day month. Here's our most recent metrics, via Statcounter:

And Ken Perrett from Open Parachute has been busy all morning uploading Sitemeter and Statcounter data for the 300-plus blogs he ranks. Here are the June 2014 Open Parachute rankings:

It's pleasing to still be ranked inside Open Parachute's Top 10 New Zealand blogs. It makes the effort we put into blogging (which often comes at the expense of other, more productive things we could be doing) worthwhile.

As the General Election draws nearer, politics will be our primary, but not our exclusive focus. James Stephenson emerged from hibernation this morning to blog, and we're hoping Nookin will make regular contributions so you don't just have to endure our thoughts. And Curly Sue has promised to keep her creative juices flowing, even though she's been a bit quiet of late!

A blog would be a lonely place if no one visited or commented, so thanks to those of you who take the time to do just that. You encourage us to keep going on days when we could easily flag it.

0 Yet another record month

We were a little bit gutted when our Sitemeter counter spat the dummy last week. That's because we knew that another record was within reach. Sitemeter still hasn't found our missing visitors, and in fact is more than 100 hours behind now:

Fortunately, we also installed Statcounter a few years ago, and given that Ken Perrott at Open Parachute also includes Statcounter in his Blog Rankings, that will now be our counter of choice. But Statcounter too confirmed our best moth ever:

And to round things off, we've achieved our best-ever ranking on the Open Parachute rankings; check this out:

 

We're never likely to threaten Kiwiblog or Whaleoil, or any of the top five. But we've got our eyes on Sciblogs, and as the election draws nearer, even Danyl's Dim-Post numbers may be attainable. But we also work full-time, and we have to balance our priorities!

Rex asked yesterday "You do this why?". That's a very good question, as we approach our seventh birthday. We "do this" because we can, because we enjoy it, and in view of the increasing visitor numbers, clearly other people enjoy what we produce as well. We're never going to be mass-market in the same way as the leading blogs on Ken's rankings, but we're up there with the most-visited "boutique" blogs. Clearly, there's an audience.

And we'll continue to "do this" as long as we enjoy it. When the enjoyment factor drops away, it'll be time to retire from blogging. In the meantime you're stuck with us!

Thanks to everyone who visits, and an even bigger thanks to those who take the time to comment; we sincerely appreciate your opinions (even yours Rex), even if we don't share them. It would be a boring place if everyone agreed all the time. So it's onwards and upwards!

0 What's up with Sitemeter?

 UPDATE: 31 hours now, and still waiting...

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When we turned on our computer this morning, we hadn't had a single visit to Keeping Stock since about 11pm last night. We thought that was a bit strange, because we'd had several comments in that period.

As at 8pm this evening, we still haven't had a single visitor all day, according to Sitemeter. But we're getting this odd message:

Fortunately, we also have Statcounter as a back-up, and we've certainly had passers-by today as you can see from this.

So has any other blogger had this issue before? We have Sitemeter drop out completely from time to time, but this is the first time it's just lost track of all our traffic. We're hoping they'll find our missing punters, because we're headed for another record month!

0 Back to reality

We've had a wonderful week in Adelaide. We've done plenty of resting, walked plenty, eaten a different variety of ethnic food each night (an Argentinian steak house last night!) and SWMBO has done her bit for the South Australian retail sector. In short it has been an excellent break.

But all good things must come to an end, and we're about to board the plane back to Auckland. Plenty of work will await our arrival home, although we are surprised how few calls and e-mails have found their way to us over the last week. Our staff have done well!

We'll be offline now until tonight, and we'll be back in the blogosphere proper on Wednesday catching up with what's been going on in our absence. We'll also be adapting to the weather at home; the thermometers here were into the early 30's for a while around the middle of yesterday, but we gather that temperatures at home have not been quite that warm!

As for Adelaide, it's been the perfect destination for the holiday we needed. We recommend it heartily. But now it's back to reality...

0 Lighter blogging ahead

We've blogged a lot over the last couple of months. We've also had an exceptionally busy start to the work year. As a consequence, the batteries are running a little flat.

So we're doing something about that, and She Who Must Be Obeyed and ourselves are having a wee getaway. We're currently visiting family in Auckland, after which we will board a big silver bird for a short trip across the Tasman. Unlike New Zealand's premier arts and travel blogger, we won't be documenting our every move, but we will endeavour to stay in touch.

So blogging may be lighter than usual for the next week to ten days. Then again, some of our partner bloggers like Mykuhl and James Stevenson might be challenged to contribute. Of course, when we return we will be relaxed, restored and dangerous! Whether that's a good thing or not remains to be seen.

Bear with us, and we'll be back full-time around the end of the month. In the meantime we have places to go and people to see! 

And don't forget to cast your vote in the Keeping Stock election poll which closes at 7pm tonight; exactly five months out from the real thing.